The agreement has been made possible by changes to the law introduced by the government last year, and brought into force by Ofcom.

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An ITV spokesman said: "Our first paid-for placement of a product will be placed in ITV1's This Morning on Monday, February 28.

"We are currently talking to clients about a number of product placement opportunities, spanning a range of programmes and channels."

Channel 4 and Channel 5 are also thought to be in negotiations with corporate brands to run product placement in their programmes.

Some analysts believe that product placement on TV could be worth upwards of £100m a year to broadcasters, but others have placed that figure at just £25m a year.

Under Ofcom's new guidelines, all commercial broadcasters have to show a new logo for three seconds at the start and end of programmes containing product placement, and after any ad breaks. Broadcasters are allowed to slightly modify the logo - a black and white letter 'P' - to enable its use on either dark or light backgrounds.

Broadcasters were ordered by Ofcom to run on-air campaigns aimed at driving up consumer awareness about the new product placement rules.

However, new research published by thinktank Vision Critical indicates that almost two thirds (61%) of people are unaware that product placement is now permitted on TV.

More than half (52%) of the survey sample of 2,000 viewers said that they were "comfortable" with the prospect of product placement, while 32% were "uncomfortable". Some 38% felt that TV quality would decline due to the new regulations, but 31% felt that it would actually improve.

Mike Stevens, head of research at Vision Critical London, told MediaWeek: "There's a real lack of awareness that commercial TV will soon be carrying paid-for promotion of brands. It's to be expected that people will feel uncomfortable at first.

"What's maybe surprising, is that a third of people think this could actually improve programming quality by creating a new income stream for broadcasters - it suggests viewers appreciate the tradeoffs involved in commercial TV."